Reuniting the Planets
by Listless.and.Lovely
Summary: I hated how the diamonds were treated in "Sweet and Vicious". As well, I wanted to explore that universe and attempt a different style. Successful? Moderately.


With enough money and patience, anything is possible. That was the credo by which Cel Smith lived, even if she never verbalized it. That was why, in her three thousand dollar pumps and black Chanel suit tailored to a tee, she stood over the bubbling mud geysers of the Paint Pots. The dig permits themselves hadn't come cheap; the bribes that turned heads and blocked the Pots from tourists were nothing compared to the prize they hid.

Smith hired her own crew, outfitted like retro Martians in heatproof suits complete with thick, shiny glass windows over the faces. She'd been watching silently from an observation deck for hours. Most of the time, she held a weary hand over her right eye, looking serene and dangerous.

Between her feet was an old bloodstain. Briefly, she glanced at it and calculated the thickness the puddle would have been for a stain of this color and longevity. She measured the diameter vertically and horizontally. Someone bled out here.

"This is the right spot," she said to herself. "The damage will be minimal, if there is any at all."

She calculated it all again in her head. These geothermal spots only got to 160 degrees Celsius, which was 433 Kelvin. The Mars stone, (if her intel was right that was the stone they were recovering), is super dense, even for a diamond. It was fucking lucky the lummox pitched in Mars. It would need temperatures well over 450 Kelvin to start the breakdown of the diamond's carbon lattice. Then, it would need time.

Cel Smith was a patient woman, but even she was starting to get bored. She slowly removed her hand from over her light eye and blinked in the late summer air. She pointed out a spot, at random, to a member of her crew taking his break.

"There. Now," she said.

They found the stone within minutes. Examining it, bathed in a heavy pH basic wash and no longer smelling of sulfur, she looked over her stone and nearly wept. It was perfect, still perfect. This moment was a little surreal. She pinched her forearm between two burgundy talons to ensure this was no dream.

When one of her indispensable underlings told her the Planets were in transit, she thoughtfully worried her lower lip between her teeth. When the underling, a rare specimen of loyalty and wits called Bo Barrows, informed her that the Planets were only in transit so far as Chicago, she said simply, "Hmm. Honey."

Cel had made peace with her inability to beat Honey's glimmers, whether they simply covered up his vast network of informers or whether they truly were glances at the future. She had tricks enough of her own, coupled with vast disposable income and endless patience.

Barrows had done his homework well. The work site was broken down in under an hour and Smith and her crew was on the road in minutes. They backtracked and began following the route the fatal lovers would have taken. Barrows had indeed done very good work for her; his probable calculated stops matched hers perfectly. It was rare in her experience, to find a friend that was even half as sharp as she. It was rarer even to find one she could trust.

Barrows had collected all of the security tapes from all the gas stations along the route that he could find. Most went for under a hundred. After having an underling watch each minute of each tape and finding which stations they'd fueled up at, their approximate route was established. If they followed, they would at least be near the Planets. Finding which lowly plebs had received the Planets was up to Cel Smith.

They hadn't just blindly taken off into the west. The search for the Planets began in a backwards sort of way where the debacle originally started, in Chicago.

"The late Mrs. Pobrinkis, I assume," Cel said.

The young woman lifted her black veil and nodded. She looked completely distraught, though make up and artful hair did much to hide that.

"I'm going to dig up Honey's body because he has something of mine," Cel said. The situation, she felt, needed little finesse.

"What in God's name…why would Honey have something of yours?"

"Because he died holding it. It's mine and I'm taking it back," she said. "You need to sign this."

"And why would I do that? Why would I sign papers that let you desecrate my husband's body?"

"Because I'll have you killed if you don't," Cel paused and removed her gun from its holster. "You don't have to sign at gun point. I'm just proving that I don't need your cooperation."

The widow pulled her veil back down over her face and was silent for a long time. She heard the slight sound of a gun's safety being clicked off and sighed.

"You don't need to exhume him. Please," she said.

"If my Planet was buried with him—" Smith began. Her hand was firmly on her piece.

"It was, well, it was supposed to be buried with him. But when I saw it…" she looked down at her hands, ashamed.

"You couldn't imagine anything so beautiful going into the dirt. So you took it and brought it home with you," Smith said. The widow nodded, her hat's massive brim wobbling.

"And put it in your jewelry box, next to something…something he gave you," Smith said. She looked at the widow, craned down to look into her eyes. "Engagement ring," Smith said with absolute certainty.

The widow nodded. She moved to the stairs and ascended them. She returned with the diamond in both her hands, held before her like an offering to a great, fearful deity.

Cel took it gladly and left, rejoining Barrows in their sleek panther of an SUV. They were off to see some painted geysers. Cel had calculated their route based on getting to the stone most at risk for damage. Were she more romantic, perhaps they would have shadowed the doomed lovers' route exactly.

Pragmatism was infinitely more useful, were anyone to ask her opinion on the matter. Their route was to get Jupiter first, since they were already in Chicago, then Mars before any others since it would take the most physical work. They would stop off in Cody and grab Venus, grab Mercury from Xander, hit up Blue Earth, possibly the towns nearby, ending in Janesville. Then, back to Chicago, with seven beautiful stones.

The engine of the SUV clicked quietly to itself, shutting off and allowed to cool down after a long stretch.

"Venus," Cel said, chewing a thumbnail thoughtfully. So rarely was anything worrisome enough to manifest itself in Cel that Barrows took pause.

"What's the challenge here? It's a day spa," he asked, a hand on her shoulder.

"Venus, a woman and a goddess and our diamond. How am I supposed to get this one?" She leaned into his comforting touch, a dangling earring tickling the back of his hand.

"Well, buy it off of her," he said. "Shoot her. Come on," he nudged her as one would nudge a snoozing child.

"Wait!" she said, smiling. "It's so simple. You'll get it."

Barrows nodded, ever loyal and understanding.

"This is her," Cel said, holding up a photo of a gorgeous blurry woman. Despite that it was a capture from a security tape, it was clear she was a real knock-out.

"So, how should I go about this?" he asked, quiet and serious.

"Don't shoot unless necessary. This place has much tighter security than you'd think. I'd suggest charming her."

"Charming?"

"Yes, you are," Cel said. She reached over and tightened his tie, straightened his collar and brushed down his shoulders.

"You want me to…I don't…" he trailed off. "Fine. I'll do it. Boss."

Cel hopped down and strolled into the spa. She planned on at least a massage. Alternating between sleeping in the car and driving was doing a number on her back.

Barrows was once an excessively handsome man. In his boyhood, little girls and their mothers invited him to dinner, picnics, church, anything they could think of. The boys all picked him early on for their informal sports teams even though the only athletic thing he remotely good at was running.

The mothers and fathers and the children, boys and girls, all wanted to be near him, to absorb some of the effortless confidence, some of the ridiculous beauty he exuded.

The problem was that Bo, at the time still called Bo Johansson, had no love fore parties, despised the boring sermons of church he barely understood, and spent his most enjoyable hours by himself, in the woods. Here he would pursue a frog, dig a deep hole or climb a tree, all while imagining he was the last person alive on Earth.

Little changed as he aged, other than his father's death and his mother's hasty remarriage. Six months later, he had a little blonde sister. She was not premature. Bo, a sharp twelve year old, knew how the whole birds and bees thing worked. He counted and got six months, at the hospital asked the nurse if his sister was born too early.

When it clicked, when he realized his mother had been fucking another man while married to his father, he felt an amazing sense of clarity. Then, the feeling of betrayal set in.

It wasn't the adultery, he could forgive that. Love was more important than paper promises. And it wasn't the coroner's suspicions that his father had been poisoned. He was a raging, violent drunk who more often than not found it easier to express his anger at the world by beating his wife and son. If his mother had killed him, it was justice. That she used poison was simply the kindness and mercy of her being, giving him a gentle death he was unworthy of.

The betrayal came when his stepfather and his mother sat him down and explained that they had changed his name. He was no longer a Johansson. He was Bo Barrows now. They took his name. They didn't even ask.

Bo glanced at himself in the reflective lobby, wondering how the hell he could pull this off. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago, no problem. Now, though? What with the grey hair and the wrinkled forehead, the scar parallel to his left sideburn, his looks were kaput.

True, the shape of his body remained, all whipcord muscles and long, strong limbs. The fluffiness of the robe they gave him to wear augmented this.

Wandering, he found an area with several small pools. Steam rose lazily from its unnaturally blue surfaces. Shrugging his robe down, he caught eyes with someone across the way. Rising from one of the pools was Venus (or Lucy or whatever Cel's file said her name was).

He smiled a slow, broad smile, telling her to come to him with his eyes. Naked, he stood waiting but with the attitude that he was not totally convinced she was what he wanted. This look he gave women was decimating; only once had it failed him.

What he would never understand is that his looks were not dampened by time or age. They merely changed. Now, he seemed rich and dangerous, worldly and bold. She came to him, quickly over the slippery mosaic floor.

"Hello. I'm Lucia. Is there anything I can do to make your stay more pleasurable?"

"A few things come to mind."

"Such as?" she said, face serene. A woman that looked as good as she did could have anyone she wanted. She would have to choose him.

He shrugged once, a minute movement. "Maybe you didn't understand," he said. The bait was obvious, but she would take it, provided she wanted him.

"Why don't you follow me? The staff gets these private relaxation chambers. They're just what you're looking for."

From the looks of the so-called private relaxation chamber, the staff was expected to work days at a time. More than likely, their shifts lasted hours, with naps in between. They seemed to be given bedrooms, little closets with twin-size beds shoved in them, so as to nap between tending to guests undergoing long stays.

In his gut, he knew the diamond was here. It was all he could think about, even as Venus, no Lucia's hands stroked down his chest, her breast pressed into his back, fingers curled around his dick, all he thought of was the diamond.

She would take it with her. What was it Cel said? Lucia's lips ringed his dick and he momentarily forgot everything. It didn't last, that moment of oblivion.

Cel said, when he wondered why she didn't think the punters who got these rocks wouldn't hock them first chance, she said mostly they would keep them and look at them. She said that's what they did to you, made you stop and appreciate beauty.

And that's what he was doing, his job and boss and wife out of his mind. Lucia's beautiful body, her large, firm breasts and narrow waist and perfect hips aligned above his, pumping up and down like a piston.

Eventually, it ended. They both slept, he dozing gently and lightly. He woke after perhaps a minute, when the crappy little door squeaked open. Cel stood there, robe loose at her shoulders, revealing more of his boss's cleavage than he felt comfortable with.

She put a finger to her lips. Gracefully, he extracted himself from the tiny bed. Lucia slept.

They looked with care, opening and shutting drawers silently. In the closet, Cel frantically searched. Alighting on a handbag, she dug through the contents, a bright smiled cracking her face.

From the giant bag emerged her fist, closed around Venus. Onwards to Xander, Wyoming.

"I have a terrible feeling," Cel said to Barrows once they were back in the car and on their way to Xander.

"Is it your head?" Barrows asked. His boss often had migraines. He knew these kinds of things about her. He cared, he really did.

"No. I have a terrible feeling we're going to have to shoot the next one," she said, and sighed.

"I'll shoot him if you want," Barrows offered.

"Her. It's a teenaged girl. Probably a redhead, though the tapes were in black and white."

"Which tapes?"

"Xander, Wyoming. Dairy Queen. Called the cops out because of a disturbance. Bunch of teenagers dancing like they were being electrocuted," she fished through her file, stopping on a Xeroxed police report and stills from the video.

"Look," she said, pointing to something in a grainy still.

Barrows glanced over, taking his eyes from the road. He needed only a glance. There was Henry and his woman, and in Henry's hand was the silver case.

"If you watch the tape, you see that bitch order her oaf to open the case up. She grabs one of them, I think Mercury, and gives it to the girl that first started dancing."

Barrows nodded and let his boss talk. He thought about his life at home, his wife, his daughter on the way. Their ancient terrier, acquired when first they started living together. Irving was old then and hung on still, after all these years. Loyalty and stubbornness.

Barrows saw himself in that dog. They were both deceptively good fighters despite their ages, thick hair more grey than black, brave and stubborn.

"You don't look like a terrier," Cel said. "Or any kind of dog, for that matter."

"I don't like when you do that," he replied sharply.

"Do what?" she said with fake innocence.

"Know what I'm thinking about."

"It's just a guessing game," Cel replied, sounding a little edgier.

"Then how come you're never wrong?" Barrows asked.

"I'm very good at this particular game," she said cautiously. She always got edgy and cautious when people accused her of having supernatural abilities.

"Are you really going to shoot the teenager?" Barrows asked, to change the subject. His boss hadn't directly killed anyone in years.

"If she won't give it up, yes, I will," Cel replied, rubbing her right eye.

"That'll really put a damper on things. This trip's been so quiet so far," Barrows said.

"Yes, it's almost like a vacation," Cel agreed.

Cel didn't know what she would do if the girl resisted. Shooting her was the Gordian knot solution, but wouldn't really solve any more than one specific problem.

"This her place?" Barrows asked, though he knew it was the right address.

"Yes, I think so," Cel said, rubbing her left eye.

"You want company?" he asked. "You shouldn't go in alone, boss."

"I like that you worry about me, Barrows," she said. She was dangerously close to using his first name.

"It's my job," he replied quickly.

"I'll be fine. I'll get you if I'm not," she said. He got out of the car and opened her door, leaning in to ask, "Do you have your piece?"

"I do," she said. "Loaded. I've got Belinda."

Belinda was her favored handgun, a shabby-looking Smith & Wesson Model 39. Cel swore by its accuracy, treated it somewhat superstitiously.

She made he way up the walk. No cars in the garage from what she could tell, but she knew the girl was home. She rang the bell and inhaled, to calm herself. It was not that she was nervous, rather she needed to stave off the feeling that she was going to have to take this stone from a corpse.

A thin redhead answered the door. Meekly, she asked, "May I help you?"

"I'm Cel Smith. And you are?"

"Ginny," she replied, looking around uneasily.

"Ginny, I've come for my diamond."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said quickly. She began to shut the door.

Cel smiled. She knew that how this one would play out, at least in the beginning. "Is that so? I bet a hundred dollars I can prove differently," she said, pulling out a fat bankroll. She peeled a hundred dollar bill off of it with practiced nonchalance.

With both hard eyes, she watched Ginny's face. Saw how greedily she looked at the money, what longing there was in her eyes.

"You're a smart girl, Ginny," Cel said, holding the money with studied disinterest. "What diamond am I talking about?"

"Mercury," Ginny whispered. She felt both ill and afraid.

"Very good," Cel replied. "You've won the bet."

Ginny took the money and folded it into her fist silently.

"Because we both know how very smart you are, I'll assume you understand that my diamond came to you via a less than, shall we say, legal channel."

"Okay," Ginny said.

"And a smart girl like you looks at me, in these expensive clothes, with this lump of a concealed firearm and this disposable income, and knows handing over the diamond is in her best interest."

Ginny backed further into the house and moved to pull her cell phone from her back pocket.

"I wouldn't," Cel said. "If I were you. It would lead to you being implicated in one of the highest profile organized crime thefts in decades."

Cel moved from the front porch and gently pushed open the door. She tucked away her money in a movement that exposed her gun just for a moment, like an exhibitionist flashing his genitals.

"Are you going to kill me?" Ginny asked in a quiet voice. There were tears in her eyes.

"Being implicated in a crime like that would really hurt your college chances," Cel said, ignoring a question she felt she had already answered. She moved through the house, stopping at a first floor bedroom. "Not to mention your future employment opportunities.

Looking at the lavender walls, double bed, desk covered in the trimmings of a back to school sort, she knew she'd gotten lucky. Found the right room on the first try.

Pinned to the cork bulletin board, she saw it. Acceptance letter, heavy embossed paper. The pushpins were shaped like butterflies.

"And you are a smart girl. Sarah Lawrence is a very good school," Cel said. Ginny had followed her of course. "Very expensive."

"I got a scholarship," Ginny replied.

"Partial academic, I see," Cel said, reading the other paper pinned there. "Your parents don't make enough to pay for you to go, but they make too much to qualify you for financial aid."

Cel turned to face the redheaded teenager. They both knew what she would say next.

"Your diamond would easily cover your tuition. Four times over, twelve times over, a hundred times over. Maybe more, right?"

"How much…" Ginny found herself asking. "How much will you give me for it?"

"As much as I want," Cel said.

"But…the money, my parents, they'll…" Ginny trailed off.

"They'll want to know where it came from. Hm," Cell rubbed her chin thoughtfully. This was always a possibility with smart ones.

"Ah, I've got it. Bear with me a moment," she said, whipping out on of those state of the art cell phones. The kind that look like something out of a comic book.

She spoke tersely in a language Ginny couldn't understand.

"You applied for a grant, a scholarship from a charitable organization. In addition to their financial contribution, they've agreed to publish your writing. You do write, don't you?"

"I—I want to major in English," Ginny said. She was still scared but less so.

"So. That's that. Now, where's…" Ginny had already stooped down, pulling open the bottom drawer of her desk.

"Mostly, I would just look at it," she said, as though confessing.

"It's meant for that. And it's meant to stay with its companions."

Cel, diamond in her pocket, turned to leave.

"Are you a good person? Or a bad one?" Ginny asked, still sitting on the floor.

"Not really sure," Cel said. "Bad, I suppose."

"You're giving me my future, and you didn't hurt me."

"That would make me a good person, huh?" Cel asked, a little smile forming. "Here's the part you're forgetting: I _would_ have hurt you. Don't forget that. A bad person won't always stroll in and start shooting. And a good person never will. But a bad person would, if they decide to."

Cel walked out, leaving Ginny curious and scared. Would she come through? Would the money ever really show up? Even if it didn't, Ginny had been spared. Getting into her dream school had no point if she didn't live long enough to actually attend.

Barrows was fairly quiet. Cel, who drove this time, was likewise quiet. She kept thinking about that question, was she a bad person? Maybe. Mostly.

"I'm sorry you had to sleep with Venus," she said quietly.

Barrows whipped his head to look at her. This was the first time, in his employment, that she had ever apologized to him. Much worse had been shrugged off with hospital bills paid or some other compensation, with a shrug of the shoulder and advice to move on.

"I didn't mind," Barrows replied. "I enjoyed myself."

"Some people don't like to step out of marital bonds," Cel offered, looking at him quickly, apology still in her eyes.

"My wife doesn't know much about me. She doesn't know my real name, my job or my actual birth date. The man who sleeps with her and the man that works for you are different people."

"Do you ever worry she'll figure it all out?" Cel asked.

"It's the only thing I'm scared of," Barrows said. He retreated into himself, quiet again. The silence lasted until they stopped for gas and switched drivers.

"Was the woman from a small town?" she asked Barrows. He wasn't a chauffeur, but he drove more often than not. He was the only one she trusted behind the wheel.

"Yes. In Wisconsin," he replied. They both knew that. It was in the massive manila folder she kept thumbing through.

"Pull off at the next stop."

"Blue Earth," Barrows said.

Rupert helped deconstruct the beignet stall. He'd hated the job at the beginning of the summer, but after meeting that weird married couple, each day had seemed more and more full of potential. What kind of potential he couldn't really say; it was just sort of like that air was full of electricity.

He'd even met a girl. She was at the fair with her family, but stopped at bought a beignet from him. She butchered the pronunciation and he'd walked her through it. They laughed together. He asked where she was from and she said, "Boston."

After that, she gave him her phone number and address, implored him to please come visit, to stay with her and her family. He'd been saving up ever since, stock piling his car with everything he would need to drive there, fixing up the leaking coolant line, and packing away everything he had. His most precious possession was with him always. He wouldn't be coming back from Boston. He would show his soul mate the diamond and ask that she marry him. And he knew exactly what she would say.

He heard someone call to him in an unfamiliar voice. He turned his head and looked at her, a woman who had no business being at a fair, disassembled or not. Well dressed, rich but not too flashy, with a big brimmed hat dipped over her right eye. From what he could see, she was a good-looking woman Five foot six, with a decent-size chest, tiny waist, and big hips. She was alone and out of place.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Rupert," he said. "Fair's closed. Can I help you?"

"What did you sell here? Funnel cakes?"

"Beignets."

"Ah. I knew it had to be something sweet. Cake of some kind," she said.

He turned his attention back to the sagging particleboard.

"Rupert," she said, stepping closer.

"What?" he shot back.

She lifted her face to meet his, and he looked into mismatched eyes. The one she'd kept hidden was the color of a rubber duck.

"Rupert, you have something that doesn't belong to you."

She held out her hand. He felt sweat bead down his spine and the hair all over his body stood up. He mutely gave her his diamond, put his Planet in her hand. He would have done anything to get those sharp, knowing eyes off of him. She was gone by the time he looked up, vanished like she'd never been there. His empty pocket told him otherwise.

"How many Catholic priests are in this town?" she asked Barrows for the second time. He told her, again, and she nodded and sat back, running her hands through that fat file over and over again.

"And we think Arthur Kelly is the only one who could have performed the ceremony?" she asked.

"We don't just think it. Look in there," he said, indicating the file. "For our window of time, they would have had to have found him before that girl's wedding, or at it. Or the reception. Or immediately after. Boss," he tacked on.

She nodded and reread the appropriate material. After that, she felt chatty again.

"Rupert wasn't a very smart boy. Writing a thinly fictionalized account of the incident and posting it on his web page. With the date it occurred as the title," she tsked. "He didn't even bother changing locations."

"When something extraordinary happens, we always want to share it. Nobody likes to keep quiet about something big."

"I suppose."

"Anyhow, it helped us out a hell of a lot. How easy was that?" she asked.

"Very," Barrows said, flicking on the wipers. A light rain started. "What tactic will you use on the priest?"

"I've been wondering that myself. I have one in mind, but it requires a second person."

"If you're asking, I accept," Barrows said.

She smiled. Try as Barrows might to remind her of his position, she still treated him as an equal. He usually accepted that that was simply how things went, but knew if he got too familiar, certain things would become more complicated. And things were already pretty damned complicated.

Arthur Kelly was editing his latest sermon. He did so with a red pen and a harsh eye. He was most critical of himself, changing ambiguous language, always doing his best to ensure he imparted a message to his flock that could not be misunderstood.

He thought sometimes of the wedding crashers he'd married. He wondered how they were, if they'd settled down on some farm somewhere in the area. He could see them, riding tall horses, the broad-shoulder man fixing shutters, his red-haired wife watching while she hung laundry on a line.

He wondered how much trouble those stolen diamonds had brought them. Stolen. They had to be. If those diamonds had belonged to them, they wouldn't have given him one so flippantly. Sometimes, he prayed for them, wondering if what Alphonse had frantically said was true. Was it certain doom to separate the Planets? Did they curse themselves?

But he didn't believe in any of that. He shook his head and tried to get back to the sermon before him. Why had he thought of them at all? Normally, it was when he gazed upon the stone they'd given him that he said a silent pair for the tiny pious woman and her gentle, dangerous husband.

A knock answered his question shortly. He opened the door and saw a well-dressed woman in a bright patterned dress, hand twined into that of a grey-haired man in one of those ten thousand dollar suits.

"Hi there Father," she said. "My friend Grace says you'll marry people on the fly," she flashed him a smile. He glanced at her eyes. One the color of his mother's Bible, brown leather blackened by age, the other like a harvest moon.

"Excuse me?" Arthur Kelly responded.

"My lover and I wish to be married," the man said, lifting their held hands as if showing proof of their devotion.

"You won't get anything by lying to me," Arthur said warily.

"I don't know about that," the man replied, kicking the door closed behind him. "It got us in here, didn't it?"

"Whatever you do to me is between you and God," Arthur said calmly.

"How did you know?" the woman asked. "How did you know he wasn't my future husband?"

"I know what two people in love look like, especially if it's the kind of frantic love that, that, well, you wouldn't understand."

"The kind of frantic love a low-level bruiser has with a small town hick?" the man asked.

"Manners," the woman said to her companion. She let go of his hand. "Father, do you know what I've come for?"

"To find the diamond those two gave me, I suppose. I knew this day would come," he said calmly.

"I don't have any need to hurt you, Father, if you'll give it freely," the man said.

"I will, depending on how you answer this question," Arthur said, still calm.

"Ask anything," the woman said. She must have been in charge. "You can ask me three questions, if you feel the need."

"What happened to them? The people I married."

"Henry was shot to death by his old boss, the one he took the diamonds from. Grace returned to her hometown, according to my sources."

He nodded his head. He knew no good could come of stealing diamonds.

"Why are you here?"

"I want to recover the planets. They belong together," she said with great intensity.

"What is your name?" Arthur asked.

For the first time in a decade and a half, she said her real name, her birth name, aloud, "Celina. Celina Sanguszko."

Arthur opened his desk drawer and removed something wrapped in a silk handkerchief.

"This never belonged to me," he said, passing it to Celina.

"The Planets don't really belong to anyone. They belong to each other."

The man opened the door and walked through it, waiting for Celina to join him.

"Goodbye Arthur, and thank you. I really didn't want to have to kill a priest and having met you, it would have been most disappointing to have to shoot you in the gut."

"Thank you, and thank you for answering my questions."

Arthur sat back down behind his desk and took up his red pen. Chilled by his encounter, he buried himself in work. He gave his sermon that next Sunday and it was popularly believed to be his best sermon in years. He cannot recall a single word he said.

Cel Smith was not her given name, but rather one she found suitable for business. She was born Celina Sanguszko to young parents in a pocket of Polish Chicago. She didn't learn English until she was twelve.

She now spoke without any accent, like a news broadcaster. An eye infection and subsequent medication during her childhood resulted in her mismatched pair.

The left was the color of stained mahogany while the right was marigold. She had learned while wearing an eye patch given to her by one of those free doctors that most people squirmed when she stared at them. She refined this ability after her eye had healed and could stare down anyone.

She cultivated mysteriousness around herself and surrounded herself with the right people. She worked twice as hard and was twice as brutal as her male competition. She got noticed by the smart and powerful for her ability to plan. The heavy hitters admired her ruthlessness and unexpected vicious streak. Her high cheekbones and big lips, full chest and fuller ass definitely helped secure the attention of some of her male bosses.

She had worked very hard to be where she was and never forgot that she was always only one bullet away from losing it all.

She was so close. So close. One more, one more and the Planets would be together again. It would be over.

It was bittersweet. Barrows was taking leave, a few months off to spend with the wife and the new baby he would have by then. The end of this meant she wouldn't be seeing him for some time.

She trusted him completely; he truly was her best man. He spent more nights with her than he did with his wife. She'd wondered about that, what his cover was. He couldn't pretend to be a doctor, since there's always those freak situations where there's a car accident or something

Barrows was distantly concerned as well. The reason he called her boss was simply that he wanted to remind her that was their relationship. Boss and employee. She relied too heavily on him.

More importantly, he wondered when she would finally realize she was in love with him. By now, she should know. Denial is only so deep.

On her way to work, back to the carwash, Grace stopped suddenly in the street. Color stood motionless in front of the secondhand store, gazing into the window. She was on her way back home, groceries in tow.

"Color?" Grace said softly as she approached.

Color turned to look at her, tears in her eyes. She glanced back into the store for a moment.

"The Taj Mahal," Color said.

Grace looked into the window, and sure enough the Taj Mahal, that had sat there all those years gathering dust and dead flies, was gone.

"Grace," Color looked at her, fixing her with the intensity of her stare. "Don't go to work, don't go home. Get the hell out of town."

Grace opened and closed her mouth a few times. "Why? What's wrong?"

Color hugged her immediately, holding her tightly and sobbing. She said, "Goodbye, I love you," over and over before disentangling herself and moving on.

"Color!" Grace called out. "Just tell me, what the fuck's wrong? What's going on?"

"Get out of town, Grace. You're carrying your death warrant with you. Leave. Disappear. Please."

"I'm staying, I have to," Grace said, helplessly. "I…"

"Someone's coming," Color said. She disappeared into her car, tears shining on her beautiful face.

In her gut, Grace wasn't afraid. With Earth nestled in her innermost hip pocket, she felt its reassuring, slight lump. She patted it as she crossed the street, to the carwash.

Oddly enough, already a black SUV, not one she recognized and way too pricey to belong in this town, sat though they didn't open for another half hour.

The long-legged guy leaned against the side idly smoking seemed like he'd been there much longer. He had that same cool, casual air as Henry. The clean cut graying hair, the black designer suit, it all added up to trouble. Chicago plates. Color was right, wasn't she?

"Good morning," the man called out. His voice was reassuring, warm. Unrolling his leaning body, he stood much taller than she had expected. Towering, almost.

"We aren't open yet," she said warily.

"I'm aware," he said. He stamped out his cigarette and dusting himself off.

"You here on business or," Grace swallowed. "Just passing through?"

"A little of both," he said, flashing a smile. "You guys do inside the car?"

"It's extra," Grace replied.

"Not a problem."

Grace walked carefully around the edge of the car and into the carwash office. Once there, she exhaled slowly. She'd seen it, in the trunk, when she'd walked by. The Taj Mahal.

Stewart McFigg slept easily. At the moment, he dozed in the sun on his front porch, propped in a wicker chair. He and Grace were up all night, talking. She told him anything and everything, with one exception. She wouldn't talk about where she'd disappeared, or where she'd gotten that massive diamond.

"It's still too fresh. I'm not even sure what's real anymore."

He would have left it at that, but she kept on, "You'll know everything about me some day, Stewart. Just not today."

High heels clacked down his walk, tapping him gently awake. He opened his eyes, not knowing who would be here, wearing heels to visit poor crippled Stewart McFigg.

There was a beautiful woman before him, with a fifties pin-up girl body. She wasn't beautiful in the delicate, heart-stopping sort of way. Nothing like Grace. Nor was it the eerie etherealness of Color Danning. This woman was beautiful like an antique rifle.

"Good morning, Stewart," she said.

"Hi. Have we met?" he asked.

"Not yet. I'm Cel Smith," She said, holding her hand out. She swept her eyes over his massive arms and down his body, alighting on his boot.

"Stewart McFigg," he replied, not rising to accept the handshake. "But you seem to know that already."

"I know lots of things," she said. She smoothed a hand over her hip.

She was dressed like she was going to an enemy's funeral, skin-tight short black dress, belted in at her narrow waist and dipping low to show an unprofessional amount of cleavage. While he eyed her chest, her could feel her looking at his boot again.

"What do you want?" he asked. He felt his temper rising, could feel a flush blooming on his throat.

"When I was young, I was told I would never find a man to love me, because no one can stand even looking into my eyes."

He looked up at her and suppressed a gasp. "Is that so?"

"When I got older, they learned to stop talking about my eyes. Then they would talk about my body. Who would want a skinny girl with such big hips?"

"Plenty of men would," he said, quietly. "Whatever kinship you see between us, well, I'm not interested."

"How does it feel to be Grace's consolation prize?" she said, sweetness in her tone.

"What the Hell is your problem, lady?" Stewart clambered up, near snarling.

"Ask Grace about her husband. Ask her where she got that diamond. Ask her about Floyd. After I'm gone, remember everything she says and then decided who the villain in this story is."

She walked away, leaving Stewart blinking in the sun.

While Grace vacuumed and polished and wiped down the SUV, sweat beading around her hairline, Barrows watched her. He watched her surprisingly strong arms reaching, appreciated the view when she bent at the waist, watched her pat her pocket subconsciously.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Grace," she said, arms full of floor mats.

"I'm Bo," he said.

"I'm not interested," she heaved the mats down and spread them apart.

"You married?"

"No." She said that single syllable with total, perfect conviction.

"Why are you wearing a wedding band?" he asked. He'd closed the distance while her back was turned and loomed over her. She felt caught, panicky, but kept her head.

"Maybe it's just a ring that only fits this finger. Maybe I'm a widow," she turned to look at him, brave. Confrontational. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Maybe I did. Maybe I know more about you than you're comfortable with. Maybe I know more about that dead lummox Henry Dante than you ever will," he said, with the cool manner of a man ordering breakfast in a diner.

Grace hauled back and slapped him, hard. "How dare you! Anything you think you know about him or me is bullshit," she raised her hand again, only to find it imprisoned by Bo's impossible large hand.

"You don't even know his real name," Bo said, quiet, right into her ear.

"Get away from me," Grace whispered. She looked up into his cold, vast eyes. Like arctic oceans boring into her. She wasn't afraid.

"I already have. Give me Earth and this'll all be over much quicker and without me having to shoot anyone."

"I know you won't kill me," Grace said. "I can tell."

"You can tell how?" Barrows said, harsh laugh punctuating his words. "I won't kill you right now, no. You need to finish cleaning my car."

Abruptly, he removed his phone from his pocket. After a rapid exchange, he leaned into the car, took his keys and walked away.

"I'll be back shortly for my car," Barrows said over his shoulder.

The forest. She had to go, climb up hand over hand and up into the tree house. Just to clear her head. And it was safe, she would be safe up there in Uncle Treemus. The dress, ever the solemn and dignified hostess, greeted her, the wind rippling the fabric.

Kneeled, with eyes closed as though she were praying, was a woman Grace knew at first glance was the counterpart to the man at the carwash. When her eyes opened, Grace silently said a quick prayer, one of the few times she'd ever prayed for herself. Looking into those walleyed irises, there was death.

"Good morning," the woman said. "I believe you have something of mine."

"I don't have a thing that belongs to you," Grace said. Where this boldness had come from, she didn't know.

"Henry told you where they came from, I assume. The diamonds, I mean," she shifted, knees together but pushed to the side.

"I'd like you to leave now," Grace said.

"They're older than most people think. They date back to the Ottomans, some even attribute them to Shah Jahan. Do you know who he was?"

Grace shook her head.

"It should be fairly obvious. He commissioned the Taj Mahal. He didn't design or anything like that," she laughed, an ugly sound in the tree house's silence. "No. He built it, to house his dead concubine's body. He loved her a great deal presumably."

"Why are you telling me this?" Grace said. "I have no need for a history lesson."

"They're older than that Shah. But," she placed a finger to her lips, thoughtful. "You don't care. The point is, these diamonds weren't meant to be divided by some brainless hick and a dime a dozen muscle bag."

"That's enough!" Grace yelled, diving for her. They tumbled around the small space, elbows and knees banging the walls. The woman, Grace pinned below, pulled out her gun and clicked off the safety.

"Calm down. Sit up," she ordered, a voice like a razor slicing through. "Take Earth out of your pocket and put it down. Now."

Grace considered disobeying. She could feel the flavor of fear on her tongue. She wasn't ready to die. In a way, this encounter was fulfilling Henry's dying wish. Numb hands pulled out the stone and dropped it.

"Now back up," the woman said.

"What?" Grace said, turning to look over her shoulder.

"Eyes on me. Back up. Stop when I tell you."

Grace prayed again, starting silently and growing increasingly louder until she was sobbing quietly to herself as she recited. She kept scooting back, knowing only moments waited until the floor disappeared.

She fell boneless, arms and legs totally relaxed. Emitting only a small yelp initially. She thumped to the ground.

The diamond in hand, Cel calmly climbed down the tree and walked through the small forest.

Barrows stood waiting, leaned on the SUV and smoking with the attitude that the entire world can go fuck off. His eyes held precious worry.

"Hey," Cel said as she neared him.

"Hi," Barrows replied. He held an unlit cigarette against his and handed it to her.

She took it without words and puffed away. She set down her case and opened it without flourish. The Planets winked at her, winked at the high noon sun.

"Bo Barrows," she said. "Is the only man I ever trusted enough to love."

"I know," Bo replied, squatting down next to her. "I know. And I love you, too."

Renaissance was never a word Grace gave much thought to. She knew the literal meaning was rebirth. That was her experience, opening her eyes to the treetop ceiling, light that filtered through unbearable bright.

"Fuck. Ouch."

She staggered to her feet and took her first shaky steps into her new life. Miracles dress up like coincidence sometimes. Whichever it was, she walked away from what should have been a fatal fall with a few scrapes.

Boots finding the ground, step by step, she left the forest and entered the real world. Maybe this time she'd live life a little better.


End file.
